logging

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A federal appeals court has rejected a lawsuit by the timber industry seeking to strip Endangered Species Act protection from a threatened seabird that nests in old-growth forests.

Environmentalists say the ruling Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., should mark the end of a 15-year legal battle over logging trees used by marbled murrelets along the coasts of Oregon, Washington and northern California.

The Forest Service needs to increase harvesting in the Tongass National Forest or timber mills in Alaska’s southeast will start to go bust, Energy and Natural Resources chair Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told its chief Tom Tidwell at a hearing Thursday, E&E reports.

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Loggers cutting down forests burned in wildfires could bring about the extinction of California spotted owls, wildlife advocates said Tuesday as they sought protection for the birds under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The petition says emerging science has shown that the owls thrive in old growth forests that are still living as well as those that have been burned and turned black by high-intensity forest fires.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A watchdog group is challenging the environmentally friendly "green lumber" certification for Plum Creek Timberlands, one of the nation's biggest landowners and timber producers.

The Center for Sustainable Economy, based in Lake Oswego, Oregon, filed the complaint Thursday with a nonprofit group that verifies whether timber producers follow standards for environmentally responsible logging, including replanting after harvest, protecting water and biological diversity, and complying with environmental laws and regulations.

The continued court fight over the U.S. Forest Service sale of logging rights in the Tongass National Forest may well determine the future of the entire timber industry in Alaska, The New York Times reports.

WEED, Calif. (AP) — Besides destroying or damaging scores of homes and other structures, a fast-moving wildfire struck a blow at the economic vitals of this struggling Northern California timber town, knocking its last wood products mill offline for an undetermined amount of time.

With a maintenance shed reduced to twisted sheet-metal and the main manufacturing facility suffering structural damage, but still standing with a new coat of pink fire retardant, the Roseburg Forest Products veneer mill on the outskirts of Weed was out of commission Tuesday while workers began assessing the damage, said Kellye Wise, vice president for human resources of the company based in Dillard, Oregon. The company hoped to have a better idea of when the mill could reopen by Monday.

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — U.S. Forest Service officials say they tried to balance competing interests in a plan that will allow loggers to remove trees killed in a massive Central California wildfire last year.

Environmentalists, however, have called it a travesty.

The highly awaited decision released Wednesday will allow logging on 52 square miles of forests blackened in the Rim Fire, which burned 400 square miles of the Stanislaus National Forest, Yosemite National Park backcountry and private timber land.

Environmental groups including the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council have filed at least three lawsuits against the U.S. Forest Service, looking to stop the sale of timber from the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, the Los Angeles Times reports.

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — U.S. Forest Service officials say they tried to balance competing interests in a plan released Wednesday that allows loggers to remove trees killed in a massive central California wildfire last year, but environmentalists called it a travesty and threaten to sue.

The highly awaited decision will allow logging on 52 square miles of forests blackened in the Rim Fire, which burned 400 square miles of the Stanislaus National Forest, Yosemite National Park's backcountry and private timber land.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Four conservation groups have petitioned the Interior Department to list an iconic Alaska tree as threatened or endangered because of climate change.

Yellow cedar for centuries has been carved by Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people for canoe paddles and totem poles. They could remove a lengthwise strip of bark from a living tree to use for weaving baskets and hats, and as backing in blankets because the trees can compartmentalize the damage and heal themselves.

Yellow cedar can resist insects and rot and live more than 1,000 years but their shallow roots are vulnerable to freezing. Climate warming over the last century has been deadly.

General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt’s moves to refocus the company on its industrial side have run into the problem of lower oil prices, given that oil and gas were responsible for a fourth of the company’s $100 million in industrial revenue last year, The Wall Street Journal reports.

A measure that passed the Republican-controlled senate in Colorado, which would have cut 2020 renewable energy targets for the state’s utilities and cooperatives, has been killed off by Democrats on a House panel, the Denver Business Journal reports.

Legislation introduced in the Pennsylvania legislature last week that would encourage natural gas distribution companies to cut their own consumption drew criticism from the industry, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

The Environmental Protection Agency was wrong in failing to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request from the conservative Landmark Legal Foundation back in 2012, Judge Royce Lamberth ruled Monday, but he didn’t award damages as he said the group hadn’t proved that EPA acted in bad faith, The Hill reports.

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Two House bills aiming at the way the Environmental Protection Agency uses science have drawn veto threats from the White House: One would require EPA to publicly release details of the science behind regulations, and the other would reform the agency’s Science Advisory Board, The Hill reports.

As the strike by refinery workers drags into its second month, some workers have begun crossing picket lines and some companies are trying to use bonuses to pressure others into returning to work, but negotiations were slated to resume between the United Steelworkers and Shell Oil Co. on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

The retirement announcement from Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. a key figure on the Appropriations Committee, means that the Chesapeake Bay is losing an important champion and the Obama administration is losing a significant defender of its environmental agenda, E&E reports.

The Oklahoma Geological Survey, which has been reluctant to draw direct connections between oil drilling in the state and the dramatic rise in earthquakes there, has faced pressure from the state seismologist's boss, University of Oklahoma President David Boren, and the oil industry, according to E&E.